There's An Ancient Egyptian Deity for That!

It seems like everyone knows that Hathor is the "goddess of love," and Isis the "goddess of magic," that Thoth is the god you pray to when you need help on your university exams and Sekhmet is our ride-or-maybe-literally-die for justice. But does every pharaonic deity (or Netjer in the ancient language) only have a single sphere of influence, or a small number of concerns that they can be appealed to with prayer or magic for help with?

In ancient times as today, many people call upon various Netjeru (that is, "ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses") for the things that they need and want in life, or for help with daily concerns. Unlike today, however, in antiquity the average person might have specific relationships with deities of their family or ancestor group as well as their city, their profession, and even Netjeru that they might only talk to once a year on their special holidays. The desire to label or pigeonhole the Netjeru into single definitions of "X is the god of Y" like modern mythologists and others like to do was not so strong in a polytheistic world that fully embraced its diversity.

Every Netjer could be asked for any need. Certainly there were still specific interests that an individual deity might have, or things that it was known they might be more likely to help with than others, but the impetus to define any of the Netjeru with a rigid specific list of correspondences wasn't understood as necessary and so one appealed to the Netjer or Netjeru that they personally had better relationships with rather than just applying their list of needs to whichever deity was "officially" to be talked to for that need for the most part. And this is still true today. If you have a good relationship with Bast, for example, you can ask her for anything that you need and you wouldn't have to talk to any other Netjeru if you didn't want to.

But of course, there are times that we do want the specialist on the task. Sometimes, if we know that a certain Netjer is especially good with certain requests we might want to approach that one first or ask for tandem help from that one along with the Netjer(u) we already know.

I won't bore you with a list of commonly-known correspondences or affiliations (and yes, Hathor is still the number one goddess to talk with about love in all of its forms—she will never lose that crown). Instead, here's a list of some of the lesser-known affiliations or specialties of some of the more than 100 Netjeru and related spirits who are featured in The Complete Encyclopedia of Egyptian Deities, and you can read more about them there if you find my list useful!

• Bast, and her three usual sons in her main city of Bubastis, Nefertem, Ma'ahes, and Horhekenu, are the go-to deities for what we call "health and beauty" today. Bast is the premier Netjer associated with perfume; her name is written with the hieroglyph for a perfume jar. Nefertem is known for creating of healing oils and flower essences, and Ma'ahes is also associated with the healing and blessing properties of essential oils. Horhekenu (From Egyptian Horus Hekenu, where hekenu is the Egyptian word for medicinal ointment or salve) can be invoked as a healing deity who creates healing salves, ointment, or liniments. All these Netjeru can be petitioned for healing or self-care, to bless medicines or cosmetics, or by people who create such items in order to make them more effective.
  
  
• Climate change is at least as concerning to us as it was to the people of the ancient Nile Valley. As the embodiment of water and the sacred Nile, the god Hapy can be prayed to for the purity and safety of fresh and clean water everywhere. Alongside Hapy, various riverine and freshwater spirits called Sekhet also protect waters and waterways, and a lesser goddess/Netjeri called Henut, embodied in the symbol of a pelican, protects the marshlands of Egypt and the entire earth. Henut is a mysterious being about which very little survives from ancient times; she also appears as a form of Isis. As the living earth, Geb and his firstborn son Osiris protect both land and its ability to grow, respectively. The goddess Amenti, usually understood as the goddess of the welcoming "West" where the dead go to their reward, was embodied in trees planted in or near temple precincts to offer fruit and shade. Several Netjeru offer protection to animals or the "wild" in general. Among them are the jackal-headed Anubis, the primal ram-deity Banebdjed, and Sobek, who in the form of a crocodile is both a creator and protector of the natural world.
  
  
• Harpocrates, the Greek form of Heru pa Khered or "Horus the Child," was so popular among ancient Egyptians as a healing deity that his image continued to be produced outside Egypt and throughout the classical Roman and Byzantine empires for centuries after Egypt ceased to be under its own rulership. The image of Harpocrates with one hand to his mouth (as a three-dimensional rendering of the hieroglyph for "child," and not, as is sometimes erroneously assumed, any reference to "silence") was carried as far from Egypt as Eastern Asia and as far north as Scandinavia via trade and travel. Seated on his mother Isis' lap, that form of Horus imagery was the inspiration for Christian iconography of the Madonna and Child.
  
  
• Speaking of Hathor, it's not love and flowers all the time. As Mistress of Drunkenness, Hathor is the goddess of every kind of intoxication or excess, whether caused by beer, pleasure…or rage. Hathor's wrathful manifestation, Sekhmet, came into form as the embodiment of divine anger. According to the myth of Sekhmet's origin, she would have destroyed all of humanity had Ra not encouraged her priests to fill a desert valley with beer mixed with hematite powder. The end result, which looked like a lake of blood, was used to distract Sekhmet from slaughtering long enough for her to return to her peaceful Hathor form. Red-tinted beer (made with herbs instead of hematite) became a significant part of "pacifying Sekhmet" rituals held every year to keep Hathor's angry form at bay.
  
  
• While Isis is often invoked by various contemporary polytheists, neopagans, and others as a lunar goddess, she was always and ever a solar deity in the pharaonic religion as one of the "eyes" of Ra the sun god. So where does Isis' modern connection with the moon come from? It began in the Hellenistic periods late in Egypt's history, where for some of Egypt's Greek-speaking newcomers Isis was considered to be a form of the goddess Selene (i.e., the moon) rather than Demeter (a sorrowful mother goddess associated with earth and its bounty). Her new lunar associations persisted into the Roman world, where instead of being equated with Venus or Fortuna, Isis might be interpreted as Diana.
  
  
• Several gods are associated with the plastic arts (i.e., making things with your hands), including Khnum, who, according to myth made all of creation out of clay using a potter's wheel, and Ptah, who is said to have spoken the world into being using the thoughts of his mind (equated with Thoth) and the wishes of his heart (equated with Horus). Thoth is well known as a deity of writing and is attributed with inventing hieroglyphic script, but it's less known that his consort/partner the goddess Seshat is Mistress of Libraries and the patroness of engineers, builders, accountants, mathematicians, and historians.
  
  
• It's not a coincidence that the god Khonsu, popularized in a Marvel comics series that's existed for more than three decades but is recently the star of a popular television series, is associated with a mentally ill human. Even in antiquity Khonsu's healing powers for those who suffered from depression, dissociation, and other illnesses of the head or brain were celebrated. King Ramses II shipped a sacred Khonsu statue as far as Bactria in what is now Afghanistan to (successfully) heal a princess. Centuries later, King Ptolemy IV praised Khonsu's healing powers in a public inscription. The Marvel writers did their homework, although somehow, they also changed the god's name to "Khonshu." But they did such a good job installing that into the modern mindset that many now believe that's how Khonsu's name is spelled or pronounced!
  
  
• The god Min, usually the subject of embarrassed giggling due to his visual appearance as a humanoid deity with an exposed and erect penis, is associated with bees and their honey. In ancient Egypt, he had two entire priesthoods associated with bees and beekeeping: bity priests, who gathered honey for ritual and other use from wild desert bees, and a'afty priests who raised swarms of domesticated bees in hives on Min's temple grounds for use in ritual offerings, medicine, and food.
  
  
• Did you know that the god Set is associated with migraines? Our word migraine derives from the Greek hemikrania ("half [a] skull") in reference to how it tends to be a headache that only affects one side of the head; in ancient Egypt, the same phrase, ges tep or "half/side (of a) head" was applied to the condition. Migraines were said to be caused by Set, who in a myth once appeared in the form of a black boar to torment Horus the Younger, who got a migraine after seeing the boar. Black boar's blood (symbolizing Set's defeat) or catfish (another Set-related symbol) cooked in oil and applied to the head of the migraine sufferer are listed among migraine cures in the magical and medical papyri.
  
  
• The god Shu is associated with lifting and thus with strength, both as the deity of air and as the god who separates his children Nut and Geb by lifting Nut into the sky high above her partner. In later periods he was also shown carrying the heavy stone naoi, or temple-shaped cabinets in which sacred icons were carried, and he was said to be the priest of the various deities whose naoi he carried. Bodybuilders, people who are employed doing manual labor, or those who have to "lift" themselves and others up: take note!
  
  
• While the goddess Taweret is well-known as a protector of pregnant people and their babies from her earliest appearance, she also remained in the household to protect children throughout their childhoods. Her terrifying form (the hippopotamus was the most dangerous and scary creature that most Egyptians would ever encounter in life though they hoped never to have to) scares away evil and hippo imagery—whether it's specifically imagery of Taweret or not—can be used to protect and shield anyone and anything from harm, even today.
  
  
• Killer rabbits aren't just for Monty Python movies. Wenut, a very ancient goddess depicted as a rabbit/hare or a woman with a hare's head, is one of the many wrathful manifestations of the Eye of Ra goddess, and in an ancient text she tears off and eats Set's limbs as divine punishment for Set's murdering his brother Osiris. In need of divine protection in a situation where you are being dismissed as powerless or too soft? Wenut is here to help make those who underestimate you run away screaming.

For every obvious or often repeated tale or trait for one of the Netjeru, there are millennia worth of other less obvious and not as well-known ones. While establishing personal relationships with a Netjer (or more than one) is the best course of action when approaching these powerful beings, as the closer that you are the more they will manifest in your life and help you with whatever you should need help with, it can be useful to know something about the natures of the different Netjeru and the sorts of concepts and situations that they are associated with, both in antiquity and as they continue to manifest as living beings today. The Egyptian pantheon represents one of the most wholesome and human-loving pantheons in our planet's history and is genuinely friendly and welcoming to those who approach with sincerity. May your interactions always bring blessings, whether it's curiosity or religious devotion that brings you into their presence.